Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @06:42PM
from the because-vcrs-are-okay dept.

USA4034 writes "A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday stated that regulators had overstepped their authority by imposing a rule designed to limit the copying of digital television programs." From the article: "The FCC rule aims to limit people from sending copies of digital television programs over the Internet. The FCC has said copyright protections are needed to help speed the adoption of digital television."

But it was unclear whether the judges would strike down the FCC's 2003 rule, since doubts were also raised about whether the American Library Association and other opponents had legal standing to challenge the rule in court.
They'll let the FCC slide on a technicality, mark my words.

A perfect example of a major problem with our legal system. In order to challenge a blatantly unconstitutional and unjust law, I must first become its victim, because I cannot challenge a law until I have been brought up on charges based on that law. My only other recourse is to convince another victim to challenge it instead. We need a court system wherein one can challenge the constitutionality of any law without first violating it and risking prosecution. Otherwise, there is too great a risk that the victims of unjust laws will remain silent and not challenge the law, for fear that their sentence for violating it will be all the more severe for daring to speak out.

And when one Googles "facial challenge" one comes across the transcript of National Endowment for Arts vs. Finley which says, among other things:
"A facial challenge to a legislative Act is, of course, the most difficult challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid."

That is because America has a legal system based on the Common Law. Just like England and Australia.

Countries based on a Civil Law system such as France allow people to get rulings from a court prior to them performing an act. For example, if you were in France you could go to a court and ask "Can I download this file?" You will be given a definite "Yes" or "No" and that statement made by the court will be binding.

In order to solve this problem, Common Law jurisdictions have to develop an "Interpretations Court". What this court would do is allow people to ask whether it is legal to do what they want. Just like France.

The problem with implementing such a system is that it may be unconstitutional. The reason why it would be unconstituional is because the users of the lower court would want a binding affirmation, one that could not be overturned by the Supreme Court. This would be unsound in the terms of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is not meant to be bound by lower courts.

I propose that the crime of legislative malfeasance be codified into law.

Whereas:

The passage of laws, rules or regulations in direct contravention of the limitations of government codified in a written constitution violates the contract between the governed and the government;

The passage of laws, rules or regulations in excess of the granted authority of a government body is an offense against the liberty of every citizen;

The passage or implementation of offending laws, rules or regulations requires the complicity of numerous private citizens, independantly or in collusion, exercising governmental powers in excess of their granted authority;

The passage and/or implementation of offending laws, rules or regulations requires manhours, funds, materiel, etceteras, that would have better been lawfully employed in pursuit of the legitimate powers of government;

...and furthermore...

The government possesses no independant funds or means, but rather holds taxpayer money, and therefore cannot recompense the whole of the citizenry but by giving back their own money;

The government cannot provide compensation in the form of extra services to the whole of the citizenry because this would require taxpayer funding;

The cessation of offending activities on the part of the government in no way recompenses the citizenry for the offense committed against it;

...the crime of Legislative Malfeasance shall apply to

members of legislative bodies that vote for the offending laws, rules, or regulations in excess of the authority and powers enumerated in a constitution;

members of executive branches of government that have signatory or veto authority on the offending laws;

civil servants in managerial positions that were complicit in the implementation of the offending rules or regulations.

Any citizen that is subject to, must comply with, or is otherwise compelled by a unconsitutional law may bring suit in any superior court. The defendents (necessarily all complicit persons, no subsets) may appeal to higher superior courts. The remedies specified if the suit is upheld are as follows:

County superior court or federal court: The court costs of the plaintiff shall be borne equally by the defendants.

State superior court or federal appeals court: The court costs of the plaintiff shall be borne equally by the defendants, and the defendants governmental positions shall be openned for re-election at the next general election.

Supreme Court: The court costs of the plaintiff shall be borne equally by the defendants, and the defendants positions are immediately vacated and openned for special election.

There. That'll slow down the inexorable grind of government expansion.

but I don't think it is to much to ask to find someone who actually has been harmed.

Unless that person is you? Are you married with children? If not, than you will have _no_ clue what I am about to talk about. However, as a husband and a father of two, I personally could not wait to this point. Imagine if this "someone" was _you_ or more importantly, some one you _really_ love. This harm causes them to lose everything they have, money, home, etc. So does it still sound like we should just wait around until someone is harmed by a bad law?

I certainly don't think so. I would hate to have all I have taken away from me because of a bad law. I would hate to see my family suffer because of a bad law.

Most people who make statements like you don't have much to lose. Maybe your XBox will be taken? Oh no. Sorry, I personally think you are _way_ off on this issue. We (The People) shouldn't have to sit around waiting to be taken advantage of and/or destroyed financially until we can/should be allowed to act against our _own_ government.

Most people who voted in favour of the PATRIOT Act didn't actually read it. If congressmen are going to be *that* retarded, you have to wonder how you could ever convince them not to vote for a particular law.

Because you would be in the wrong just as much as Congress was when they added "Under God" in June 8, 1954, and Eisenhower was wrong to sign it into law on June 14.

I've stated it here before, and I'll state it again. The first 'settlers' from Europe fled here to get AWAY from being forced into a particular religion.

Here is a little info that was found by a friend of mine (I don't have the link anymore, but I do have the email he sent me).

It is a little know fact that the founding fathers of the United States of America were not, as some would lead you to believe, Christians at all. Seeing the word "God" repeated through out the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution may cause you to think that - because, of course, no other religions call their higher power just plain old "God". However, these founding fathers were actually Deists.

To quote dictionary.com, Deism is "The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation." Certainly not the God which gave his only son up for martyrdom, or the one which burned the occasional bush to get the attention of some people. Indeed, the God they believed in was the abstract God, and that belief was always secondary to the persuit of rational knowledge.

The reason why the freedom of religion was written into the Constitution is because more wars were fought over bother protecting one's own religion, and also enforcing it upon others. Guarranteeing that freedom, that right, to every citizen was to acknowledge that belief cannot and will not EVER be regulated. The separation of church and state was designed to give no one religion a particular upper hand - so that it could not dominate the country over other religions. It is there so that the free schooling system which all children must attend does not endorse one belief over another. It is there so that laws cannot be made which can be used to allow one religion to dominate this diverse country's varied belief systems. There are those who want prayer in school, but to them I ask, who's prayer? Your's or mine? Would you be offended if your child were forced to pray to Allah before every school event? Stop acting like it's only offensive when other people do it.

Thomas Jefferson would not approve of religion being taught in science class for the simple fact that reason is not the same thing as faith. Reason is about taking the measurable, the observable, and the manipulatable and abstracting the process and system by which they work. Faith is about believing, in the absence of reason or evidence, that something must be true for the simple fact that nobody can say that it isn't. You can use reason to reinforce your faith, but you cannot use faith to reinforce your reason. Science cannot be about faith. We've got other subjects for religion and philosophy. Science is pure reason, pristine and untouchable.

Someone should let David E. Kelley know that if he is going to state on his show, Boston Legal, that if he is going to use the reason that the founding fathers believed in a God as a reason to teach intelligent design in school science classes, he should at least point out that their god is not the Christian god - and if their god was taught in schools, it would still not preclude the science of evolution. It would SUPPORT it.

I promise you that if Thomas Jefferson were alive today, there'd be a whole lot of ass kicking going on. I'll leave you with some quotes, lest you doubt the facts on his beliefs, by the red headed rational himself:

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instea

Nitpicking a small portion of your response:"Would you be offended if your child were forced to pray to Allah before every school event? Stop acting like it's only offensive when other people do it."The point is that he (and/or his or anyone's kids) is not forced to say it. The child can stand or sit and stay mute; the parent can ask that their child be allowed to leave the room during the pledge. He brought this suite in poor faith, that being the primary reason I'd like to smack him.

As a junior high student in the mid '80s, I spent more than a few mornings down in the principal's office for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance. I didn't quite understand why at the time, but there was something about an enforced loyalty pledge that included a call to a divine being I did not believe in that just struck me as Wrong.

I can second your experiences, excpet I was punished all through high-school for it. (I didn't realize that I could go against my parents forcing me into religion untill I was aroung 14. They didn't like it. They didn't like the constant phone calls from teachers for how evil I was. They eventually got over it.)

You've just hit exactly on why I agreed with the lawsuit. While you may technically be 'free to disagree', as long as the phrase is a part of the pledge, there's such a stigma around *not* saying it that it may as well be cumpulsory.

Here's the thing though: When you're a student, the social stigma of the school's administration *IS* law for you. And while it may be against the rules for them to compell you to recite the pledge, it doesn't mean they won't try. I grew up with a school system that took quite a bit of legal pressure to finally realize this.

Given the fact that the "Under God" phrase is borderline unconstitutional in the first place, I fail to see how supporting its removal so school officials will stop bullying children is

You don't think being a Christian is stigmatized? I think you live in a fantasy world.

High school is a staggeringly intolerant, cliquish, exclusive place. I think that socializing in that environment is the direct cause of a lot of problems we see in modern society. I don't think that including (or excluding) talking about God is going to make a meaningful dent in that overwhelming problem.

I'm not sure it's contradictory to the law of the land. No religion is being established by the government.

Sure it is. It establishes an officially supported religious belief. It establishes the position that there is a god, that there is one god, and has directly implies a certain kind of god. It is religious oppression of polytheistic religions such as Native Americans, of atheists, and of religions with an entirely different conception of god - I beleive Buhhdism falls in that last catagory.

Nonsense. I simply think that on our political landscape, there are much bigger problems.

Like suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. THAT is what we should be spending our political energy fighting.

This debate is a distraction: It's a red herring to keep us from addressing the serious problems. Setting up such red herrings is the neo-conservative movement's true genius. They're really, really effective at distracting public opinion from big issues and getting them stuck talking around the water cooler about school prayer and gay marriage.

I think both of those topics are important, and need to be discussed and addressed. However, I'd like to get the right to a trial by jury back first.

Let's see, the sect of Christianity least likely to lose its members is Satinism. Would you be offended if your child, while not having to say the prayer, were forced to stand or sit and listen to an invocation of Satan once a week?

After all, your children _aren't_ being forced to say the invocation, they can sit it out just fine, as long as they listen respectfully and don't offer a disrespect to the beliefs of others.

Seeing the word "God" repeated through out the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution may cause you to think that - because, of course, no other religions call their higher power just plain old "God".

Actually, I don't see "God" repeated throughout the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The word "God" appears exactly once in the Declaration of Independence (in the phrase "Nature and Nature's God") and zero times in the Constitution. If anything, I'd say that makes "God" conspicuous by its absence.

"Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth."

I've seriously seen the above used to argue that God's divinity is recognized in the Constitution. (counter-argument: names of days and months in the Constitution recognize divinity of ancient Greek and Roman gods.)

Want a primer on the issue of the pledge of allegiance? Read The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The "under God" phrase. [religioustolerance.org] Note that "Under God" was not added to the pledge until 1954. If you don't believe that phrase endorses Christianity, you don't understand the way the language works. If you don't understand what is wrong with endorsing an individual religion in the national pledge, which schoolchildren have often been forced to recite even in California, then you fail to understand what Thomas Jefferson, himself a religious man, had a firm grasp on. I don't fault you for not being as smart as Jefferson but probably you should read Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists [loc.gov]. The following is the meat of the letter:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

This makes it pretty clear what was intended - keep government entirely out of everyone's religious affairs, because if you meddle just a little bit you screw everything up. The government covers actions, so you can believe whatever you want but you still can't, for example, perform human sacrifice because it's illegal to kill people even if they want to die. It recognizes that the human mind is somewhat fragile, and so is the conscience.

My mother and father were both raised Catholic. Both recovered; my mother is now either atheist or agnostic (I'm not sure which) and my father is Lutheran. My mother gave me the option to go to church if I wanted to, and I went to a Christian day care because it was inexpensive. Thus I learned the usual children's bible stories. However, I never developed a belief in God and as it was a day care and not a nursery school no one ever tried to force religion on me. In sixth grade I informed my teacher that I intended not to say the pledge due to its religious content and was informed that I would be saying the pledge. Is that at all appropriate? First of all, it really doesn't accomplish anything to say a pledge, and it means even less when you are forced to do it. However, it is nothing less than the shoving of religion down young throats. If there is no Law that respects an establishment of religion, then you simply cannot be forcing people to perform this public worship.

I would have liked to see it written "any establishment of religion" because then we could take the tax-exempt status away from the religions. Why should they get a break? Because they supposedly help people? Religions are a means of control, you can have spirituality without ever visiting a building with stained glass windows.

Anyway aside from snarkiness, it is clear (and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agrees) that the phrase "under God" promotes a specific group of religions, essentially those religions attached to the specific meaning of the word "heathen [reference.com]": "One who adheres to the religion of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam."

If you want to smack Newdow around over trying to amend the problem of an unconstitutional change to our pledge of allegiance that occurred in the fifties, then you'll find a whole lot of other people standing in your way.

I haven't contradicted myself at all; you are [deliberately?] being obtuse. Preventing people from killing people is a job of the government because it has control over actions, not thoughts. The laws against killing people do not say that it is wrong to kill people. They say that you are not to kill people or you will be punished, because it is inconvenient to have people being killed. Preventing human sacrifice is not about religion - it's about civilization, the ability for lots of people to live togeth

There is an important issue behind standing, the idea is to avoid wasting court time and to also make sure that a party can't establish a bogus precedent by bringing a case and deliberately putting up a poor case.

There is one set of constituents who are quite obviously directly affected by the broadcast flag issue, hardware manufacturers. They clearly have standing to bring a case since they are being directly required to implement the flag.

I don't think it makes any sense to throw this one out on standing grounds.

Consumers don't have the right to buy hardware of their choosing even when such hardware does not exist. This mandate does not directly affect consumers at all. It certainly affects them indirectly, but I don't know how much that matters to the court.

Hardware manufacturers, on the other hand, are being explicitly prohibited from manufacturing a certain class of items, and as such are much more directly affected by the law and would therefore have much more cause to challenge it.

I am a lawayer, but this is not legal advice. If you get legal advice on slashdot, your flag bit is wrong.

I'm not surprised at all by the ruling that the FCC overstepped, we've been seeing quite a lot of rulings recently that agencies have overstepped their authority. Broadly speaking, administrative agencies cannot make choices *about* policy, but ponly about how to *implement* the policy given by Congress (or state legislatures). To significantly deviate from what can be done with other technologies is a policy choice, not an implementation choice, and would require a charge from Congress.

What i find odd is that the court ruled on these merits while still "concerned" about jurisdiction.

And that's when I looked closer.

The court didn't *say* anything today. Judges ask questions during oral arguments, some of which suggest a position. Often, the same judge will ask questions which make it sound like he holds conflicting positions. That's normal.

That said, the statement "You crossed the line," is a bit strong even for oral arguments, and does suggest that *that judge* is strongly leaning in thhat direction.

Still, though, the court has done *nothing* at this time.

I would be surprised, though, if the ruling doesn't come out before July 1. With two judges apparently leaning in a direction, the usual standards for a restraining order against enforcement of the law would seem to have been met.

As far as standing, I would expect (but certainly wouldn't bet my house on it!) that a single actual consumer as a petitioner would have standing to sue--the inability to buy devices currently on the market should be a sufficient real harm. An "assoiacion" is a much larger stretch. The courts are frequently hostile to such standing. That said, I can't tell from the slipshod reporting who the other petitioneers are. I'd be surprised if the lawyers for petitioners didn't bother to include at least one real person as a named plaintiff.

THey WANT us sheeple to live in America, as many of us as possible. But what they DON'T want is non-consuming sheeple. That is probably why they do whatever they can to stop universal healthcare and to make marijuana as illegal as possible. They don't want us living back in the hills, growing and smoking weed, eschewing the consumer lifestyle, and only coming down out of the hills to get medical care. To them, we are just livestock on the consumer ranch, and every rancher wants his livestock as productive as possible./conspiracy theorist...

The FCC has said copyright protections are needed to help speed the adoption of digital television.

BS. The government is determined to take back the analog spectrum and move TV to the new digital channels. All they have to do is just do it, and the entertainment industry will have to deal with life in the new reality.

Is it really the job of the government to rip up an existing, heavily used infrastructure and force the providers and users onto a new infrastructure?

I don't think HDTV is worth the price. I'm not about to plunk down $1000 for a new TV $100 for a HDTV converter, when my existing TV works good enough. In the end, I would have the same basic product, but I'd have $100 or $1000 less in savings (or $100 or $1000 more in Credit Card debt). But OOOO there are more pixels on the screen now!

Basically, if the FCC shuts down the analog TV spectrum and insists that I spend money on a new thing, I'll stop watching TV. There are millions of people like me, and somehow I don't think the broadcasters want to lose the business.

I think the new HDTV mandate should use same as NTSC quality/resolution and use the additional throughput for more channels, give each licensee two adjacent channels and the government takes and reallocates the massive leftovers.

Or better yet, the digital TV mandate shouldn't specify a resolution at all.

IIRC, it doesn't, and some DTV broadcasters are indeed sending standard def signals over their allotted frequencies. The mandate from the FCC has nothing to do with broadcast quality, and everything to do with the signal type. The only requirement is that broadcasters use the newly-allocated frequencies, and that they use the digital ATSC standard, and one of the approved modulations. It's digital vs. analog here, not qualit

Thank goodness that this fell into the lap of a judge with some common sense. Seems like he made some pretty smart comments:

"Selling televisions is not what the FCC is in the business of," Edwards said, siding with critics who charge the rule dictates how computers and other devices should work.

Edwards and one of the other two judges, David Sentelle, agreed with the critics and told FCC lawyer Jacob Lewis that the law does not give the agency specific authority to dictate how electronic devices must be made.

Good call, in my humble opinion. The FCC quite simply had no jurisdiction, they outstepped their boundaries, and they were called on it.

what about all those rules re; radio interferance and cell phone & wifi antenna/design registrations.

is that not
dictate how electronic devices must be made

NO IT"S NOT.

The FCC (generally) only has the authority to dictate the use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
THEY DON'T TELL MANUFACTURERS HOW TO BUILD THINGS.
They don't tell them how to build Xboxes, cellphones, etc.
They tell they that you device must be designed in such a way that it will meet with their regulations on the EM spectrum.

This is all they are allowed to do, BY LAW.
If "the people" (a term I use very loosely...believe me) decide that the FCC should actually be able to tell manufactures to respect the broadcast flag, the a law must be passed saying they have the authority to do so.
This is what the cellphone industry pushed through for scanners and thing is what the television industry will have to do:
Buy a law.
Isn't democracy grand?

Remember when a judge ruled that the Commerce Department didn't have the authority to set up the Do-Not-Call list? Within a week Congress granted them the authority. The same will happen here if we don't begin to pressure the legislature not to give the FCC the requisite power.

In short, don't breathe a sigh of relief: instead, break out your pen and start writing.

As much as I hate to play devil's advocate, the rampant adoption of PVRs has left television in a sad state. Advertisers are no longer willing to pay top dollar for airtime out of fear that their commercials will not be watched, prompting an exec to compare fast-forwarding to theft of service in a fit of hyperbole.

Theatrics aside, the cost of quality cable or satellite programming has gone up, but the quality has been on a steady decline because of the loss of ad revenue. The FCC decision like most of their actions was made to preserve the standard of service that we've grown accustomed to, and one wonders if it will be worth recording if there is nothing at all to record.

It doesn't require lots of money to make a good TV show. You have been brainwashed into thinking a good show has to have famous people and a huge budget.

It does require a lot of money to make a good sci-fi TV show. I understand Firefly was a million dollars an episode, whereas your game shows and your reality TV shows don't even have to pay for actors or many sets. Hence the popularity of the later among TV networks.

It doesn't require lots of money to make a good TV show. You have been brainwashed into thinking a good show has to have famous people and a huge budget.

If a show is good and gains popularity, it will attract more advertising dollars. If a portion of those extra dollars is not then forwarded to those responsible for the show's quality, there seems to be a bit of unfairness there. Unless some Creative Commons analog of television evolves in which copies of the shows are distributed for free to those who do

Sorry. I do theater semi-professionally. Semi-professionally because I can't afford to do it full time (that's a little thing I call foreshadowing).

There are some tremendous actors out there in theater, in film, that you've never heard of. I can name 50 people I've worked with who are more talented than all but the very upper echelon of Hollywood types. I know directors who can do REALLY amazing things, and writers who can write gripping dialogue. And none of them make it.

Why? Because NOBODY'S F#CKING WATCHING!!!! When is the last time you went looking for an independent film, rather than seeing the latest well-marketed film from MGM, Mirimax, or Disney? Sure, there are occasional exceptions, but even those turn on one really catchy, marketable idea (frankly, the acting in Blair Witch Project was subpar--it was the premise and cinematography that was interesting).

Yeah, on a technical level, it's not all that hard to throw something together. As I said, there are some tremendously talented people out there who will work cheap. I could probably put together something better written, better acted, and more interesting than the average sitcom on a tenth the budget. But who will watch it?

"Oh, the networks will have the incentive to pick it up!" Yeah, right. Like I said, when was the last time YOU saw an indy film?

Marketing is a big deal. Getting sponsorship (even cheap shows will have some costs) is a big deal. Getting airtime is a big deal. Most importantly, getting an AUDIENCE is a big deal. Noticible stars make a big difference. "From the producers of" makes a big difference. People are largely sheep--they want something familiar before they tune in. Like it, hate it, but the "free marketplace of ideas" still rewards well funded mediocrity over poorly marketed genius. Watch the Oscars this weekend if you don't agree. Titanic, you may recall, took home 11. Heck, Arrested Development is on the verge of being canceled, despite being arguably the best comedy on network television and actually being on a big network in a decent timeslot.

The Shield on FX is a better show than NYPD Blue has been for the last 3 years, but it doesn't make nearly the same audience. And The Shield is THE success story for independent TV.

It may be a myth that it takes huge amounts of money to make a good show. But it's assuredly NOT a myth that it requires lots of money to make a show people will watch.

The side of the road is littered with better shows than most of the crap that's on your TV in primetime. You want to do something about it? SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENTS. Watch TV shows that TV giude doesn't put on the covers. See what's on networks that aren't top of the line ("Pilot Season" on Treo was tremendous). Do your own research on what's good instead of checking out what you see in the paper as "the thing to see".

When you're willing to do that--when you're ACTUALLY OUT THERE supporting (with your eyeballs, your time, and your dollars) the independents, kindly refrain from kvetching about "other people" being brainwashed.

Advertisers are no longer willing to pay top dollar for airtime out of fear that their commercials will not be watched, prompting an exec to compare fast-forwarding to theft of service in a fit of hyperbole.

I pay over $80 a month for cable service. I get analog channels, digital channels, digital music/radio channels, and HDTV. I watch, at most, two hours a week. At $40 per hour, fuck the commercials, I should be able to do what I want with TV as long as I don't disobey copyrights. I.e. time shifting and moving it to a different devices (e.g. my computer) should be perfectly legal, FCC be damned.

First they get upset when Janet shows an ugly boob, nevermind that 99% of the population either has boobs or gets to see them on a regular basis, then they try to make it illegal for me to use content I pay for how I choose. I think the FCC needs to go bye bye. They have long overlived their usefulness. Deregulate!

...the cost of quality cable or satellite programming has gone up, but the quality has been on a steady decline because of the loss of ad revenue.

Another byproduct of this is that we continue to see more advertising per unit of content. I recently discovered that new DVDs have previews at the beginning that I cannot skip. WTF, I already paid them for their content, now I have to have commercials to watch a DVD that I own? Do I really have to rip all of my own DVDs and re-burn them without commercials?

This is not the case. The quality of TV has gone down because the producers have realised that people will watch any old rubbish.

Realistically, very few people can be bothered with this. Long ago, VHS could be used to record programs and skip the ads. My SO still does this. Personally, I dont watch the box, because aside from a couple of car adverts, its not worth watching anyway.

As much as I hate to play devil's advocate, the rampant adoption of PVRs has left television in a sad state.

PVRs have nothing to do with people watching less commercials. There are more things to do now than there were 20 years ago. TV is now competing directly with console games, computer games and the internet.

the quality has been on a steady decline because of the loss of ad revenue

Originally, cable tv was advertised as being commercial free. Then the providers got greedy, and started sticking ads in. So in reality, their ad revenue is far higher than what they were originally getting.

the cost of quality cable or satellite programming has gone up

Television has NEVER been about quality programming. It's about putting on whatever people will watch. Besides, I'd argue that the tv choices now are far better than they were 20 years ago. Now at least we've got the History Channel, Learning Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, etc...

And yet, I can't bring myself to believe that if the broadcast flag were to become a mandated reality, then studios would suddenly unleash the full potential of their creative entertainment genuis on us at last. "Now at last that piracy has been defeated, we can afford to put quality television on the air once more!" -- I doubt it.

It's in their best interests to present a facade of barely treading water all the time. That means that even if they get their way with the broadcast flag, some new evil will appear that they have to be seen to chase down.

TV has always been a mixed bag. Quality is not in a decline; the vast majority of TV has always been insipid.

The "good" TV is now found on channels you pay for. HBO and Showtime are producing the cutting edge shows, which is why they tend to dominate the awards for the segment. Meanwhile, they're not showing any ads at all.

The DVD aftermarket, meanwhile, is becoming a driving force for TV development. In the end, the amount that networks pay for shows will be lower - probably down well under the

All I know is that 10 years ago I paid about 12 bucks for cable. Somehow, my current bill is around $100 bucks. I've got cooler features I don't need and a lot more channels I don't want. Doesn't some of that money go towards cable programming? I don't see how it's different from people taping a show and skipping the commercials.

Okay, I do use the PVR all of the time...and come to think of it, I'll delay watching a program for 10-20 minutes just to avoid commercials. Some of the extra money I'm spen

One more thing...when did we except the 10 minutes of commercials that happen before a movie?? Remember when it was just some previews and some dancing peanuts? I thought the ticket bought the experience. I can deal with subtle product placement, but how much are the 5-10 commercials worth to the advertisers?

Back to TV: How much would you pay to remove commercials from the broadcast? Everyone will benefit from legal, commercial-free, TV downloads./rant off

What fraction of TV watchers own a PVR? I mean real estimates based on a broad poll, not an informal anecdote of how many people you know has one vs. don't. Another issue is that maybe PVRs are showing advertisers that they don't need to spend top dollar on a prime time slot if what people are watching is from some other time.

There are plenty of great TV shows that don't cost much to make. The problem is that people see fancy FX or well-known actors and they think ths show is good. It's like the blockb

> Theatrics aside, the cost of quality cable or satellite programming has gone up, but the quality has been on a steady decline because of the loss of ad revenue. The FCC decision like most of their actions was made to preserve the standard of service that we've grown accustomed to, and one wonders if it will be worth recording if there is nothing at all to record.

I respectfully disagree.

The cost of delivering programming has dropped drastically, but the number of eyeballs on screens (and consequently, total advertising dollars) have remained relatively constant.

Furthermore, the ease of delivering content has meant that there are less advertising dollars available for any given hour of content.

The requirement that shareholders get a return on their investments has consequently to a need to reduce the cost of creating said programming.

We saw this when we went from a 3-channel (ABC, NBC, CBS) universe to a 50-channel (+47 channels of cable) universe. Mainstream "news" programming got the axe; why have a foreign bureau and an investigative team for 2 hours a night when you can do 15 minutes of soundbites, 15 minutes of sports, 15 minutes of weather, and 15 minutes of advertorials made to look like "human interest" or "your health" stories, freeing up the second hour per night for a couple of sitcoms?

Now that we're moving from a 50-channel universe (ABCBSNBCNNESPBSNFOXNickSciFiDiscovery and a whole bunch of other names you'll recognize) to a 500-channel universe ([thumbing through the "D"s... Discovery Homes. Discovery Queer Eye. Discovery Paranormal. Discovery Quadrupeds. Discovery Plants. Discovery Avians... [flipflip] Disney Ages 0-2...), we have the same problem again.

And we see the same result: Cut the cost of production, shifting to reality shows over stuff that requires expensive scriptwriters, content licenses, and/or (pen/ink/CGI) animators.

You'll get this result regardless of whether you have a PVR or not. You cannot watch more than 24 hours of TV (that is, 8 hours of advertisements) in a day. The value of an ad placed on Disney Nostalgia Channel Males Aged 30-49 is going to be less than "Behind the Wonderful World of Disney: Annette Funicello Does Disneyland" on ABC in a 3-channel universe.)

As much as I hate to play devil's advocate, the rampant adoption of PVRs has left television in a sad state. Advertisers are no longer willing to pay top dollar for airtime out of fear that their commercials will not be watched

One word: tough. More words:

There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such profit in the futur

This article is terribly vague, and it is important to note that this is NOT a ruling but what appears to be a comment (albeit a singificant, loaded one) by a judge during arguments. Still, if I put my legal spectator hat on, it does indeed look like the broadcast flag is in jeopardy.

Frankly I was kind of hoping they would try and implement it. The outcry would have been huge, and good for the larger cause.

The content trust always seems to have a pistol target on their foot, but they miss (or chicken out of their "best" ideas) too often. I was kind of looking forward to watching 300 million Americans simultaneously learn that the VCR was now illegal (metaphorically speaking), and that they now record television only at the whim of the broadcaster.

The big picture is the DMCA and the "information warfare" underpinning it. I have no idea why anybody thinks we should become an Orwellian state just so that copyright can be enforced marginally better, but then again maybe nobody does. This sometimes feels like a negotiating process. Look, we'll threaten this outrageous thing, and then this only awful thing doesn't look as bad. Or, we'll give you this minor victory (broadcast flag) and then you'll be satisfied to live in your cage.

We are actively negotiating our culture at this point. How we think about media is up for grabs. Do we think about it as something a content creator should be allowed to control to the extent of broadcast flags enforced by federal agents? Or is it something more like it's always been. Simple, de-facto free.

Actually, I don't care about a company that wants to try some crazy DRM scheme. I say let them try all they want. But what I care about is when the government and police step in to try to protect it or enforce it, let alone to the extent of chilling or even censoring speech. That's ridiculous. If users break the protection and it fails in the marketplace, OK, it was just a bad idea. It's absurd to use law enforcement to invent and prop up some nutty business model that shouldn't exist.

... I have no idea why anybody thinks we should become an Orwellian state just so that copyright can be enforced marginally better...

The people who want the Orwellian state think they will be the leaders and therefore not only be immune to it but will also control it.

Then again, you may be right by saying no one wants it. If you look at what the entertainment cartel does, it seems they just want a total monopoly (so all the money flows to them), not an Orwellian state...

In other late breaking news, the FCC has issued the following statement:
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills."
Shortly afterwards, the RIAA responded with a subpeona, claiming the FCC stole this trademark speech from a copywrighted artist.
The FCC was unavailable for comment.

"The FCC has said copyright protections are needed to help speed the adoption of digital television."

a more free environment of being able to copy and "mess with" digital broadcasts would allow more consumers to do more with what they have bought.

How would restrictions such as the broadcast flag and this about digital TVs speed up adoption amongst the public?The only way I can see this speeding up adoption is some companies and groups (such as the MPAA) would be more readily accepting of it because the

But it was unclear whether the judges would strike down the FCC's 2003 rule, since doubts were also raised about whether the American Library Association and other opponents had legal standing to challenge the rule in court.

Which means that someone...say, a consumer, aided by the EFF... may need to file a suit to follow up this one in order to stop this land grab of consumer rights to be stopped.

Seriously, money only works in politics so long as you let it. When you inform yourself of the issues and then go vote you start to change that. When you go one more and talk about issues you start scaring politicians. Go one more step and join a party can get your issues on the platform and the money works for you.

Sit on slashdot and whine about congress, corruption, and big money - you loose.

They say the FCC doesn't have the right, but they won't stop it because the "wrong people" brought the suit? AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!

If the court would just have stopped the imposition of the July deadline we could at least have found the right people to bring this suit. As is, I'm afraid that once "broadcast flag enabled" hardware goes on sale it will be hard to change.

The problem here is that, though it appears the court would be favorable to shutting down the broadcast flag, the ALA may not have legal standing. So, the question is: who would?

They are arguing that they are consumers and as consumers they are harmed. They go on the theory that this action will increase costs, etc, which I'm not sure there's a legitimate basis for.

Really where the costs come in is in vendors who develop software/hardware that would be required to implement recognition of this flag. So you'd have to find a hardware manufacturer that was willing to fight it out. The problem is that a lot of the hardware manufacturers have ties to media, so they have a strong disincentive to mess with it.

It's nice to see a Judge stand up for what he believes is the best for the people and what he believes is right without allowing the, I'm sure, intense pressure affect his decision. I wish more Judges had his perspective.

Just a little background about the Judge who told the FCC that they "crossed the line":
Chief Judge Harry Edwards
Born: New York, New York-November 3, 1940
His grandfather, a lawyer, had the most influence on him growing up and taught him several lessons for life. A speech by Marian Wright Edelman, as he describes, is fairly similar to his grandfather's lessons.

LESSON I: No person has a right to feel entitled to anything for which he has not worked. Frederick Douglass once said that "men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get." Even the most talented among us must struggle to achieve. Probably the most important thing that my grandfather ever told me was that I should never have to rely on anyone else to assess my work. What he meant was that, if I kept my standards high enough, I always would be my own most severe critic, and I would never kid myself about the quality or significance of my work.

LESSON II: Never work just for money. In amplifying on this point, my mother used to tell me that money alone does not give satisfaction, nor does it prove personal worth. We see this every day, for we are the richest nation on earth, yet we have among the highest rates of incarceration, drug addiction, and child poverty in the world.

LESSON III: Do not be afraid of taking risks or of being criticized, especially in defense of goodness or in pursuit of justice. And, as my grandfather said, never be afraid of making mistakes; it is the way you learn to do things right. Dr. Benjamin Mays, the former President of Morehouse College, said it best: "It's not failure that is a sin, it's low aim."

LESSON IV: In a decent society, the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of race and class and gender. This moral precept was a principal teaching of Dr. Martin Luther King.

I don't know if anyone else will agree with me, but this whole requiring manufacturers to make new TVs with this copyright bit reminds me of an article I read in NY Times magazine a couple years ago.

In North Korea, all TV / Radio communications are controlled by the government and all TVs and radios brought into the country are only allowed to receive the state channels, and not any broadcasts being made from South Korea or elsewhere. Even TVs brought form China are rewired / have their wires cut as they enter the country. Granted some people can fix that, most do not from what I understand.

This copyright bit thing - forcing manufactures to incorporate it into their new sets -at least from an abstract point of view, reminds me of that.

The Germans did something similar during World War II. They tried to replace all of the normal radios with crippled radios that could only receive broadcasts from the official government radio network. They didn't want their citizens listening to the BBC and other "subversive" sources of information.

So let's say the FCC is allowed to enforce this rule on a technicality or whatever.

Doesn't mean it won't come up again. And it doesn't mean that it won't eventually be struck down. And if it takes a couple years to do such a thing, all these HDTVs will be out on the market using the older technology. The 'content producers' will have shot themselves in another foot. They can't try any new tricks due to the large installed base. And by then the average consumer might be savvy enough to start demanding flag unaware televisions.

They'll really have no choice but to remove broadcast flags altogether. Sure, it's alot of ifs, but they could have royally blundered their diabolical plan for eeevil world domination through their own over reliance on lobbying the FCC.

The FCC has said copyright protections are needed to help speed the adoption of digital television.

Copyright protection will CERTAINLY NOT help speed adoption to DTV. Ceasing production of analog 4:3 sets and only selling DTV sets and thus lowering costs for DTV sets will though.

Some people, myself included, just can't see spending that amount of money on a TV set that doesn't provide long term dollar investment like an analog set does. Maybe if they only manufactured the DTV sets, the consumer would get better quality goods for their hard earned dollar???

Therefore, the FCC should convince the rest of the government to subsidize the cost of a 7000$ plasma 70" TV to about 299$. Then I'll buy it, and I won't give a rats ass (gnats-ass?) about the broadcast flag.

Actually putting a "small business owner" spin on this might be just the kick in the pants that congress needs to get off their duffs and fix this.

I'm sure you've seen them trip over each other trying to "help small business". They don't give two shits about your fair use rights, but invoke small business and they'll start in on their fire and brimstone rhetoric. Indeed, frame the debate in terms of hurting small business instead of terms of civil rights and you might just get their attention.

All that happened was that the oral argument was held. The court has not issued a ruling; that'll probably take months.

Nor should anything be read into the statements of the judges, by and large. It's entirely common for judges to ask questions that make it sound as though he's already friendly to the other side. It results in hard questions that elicit strong answers from whichever side is arguing at the time. It's merely a method of holding the argument, and doesn't generally indicate anything as to what the judge thinks.

The obvious answer: because they can cram in far more channels with digital than with analog, and thereby sell more commercial time.

It's amazing how many digital music services still use the line "CD-quality" to describe their programs when the original CD data has been heavily compressed. It may (or may not) sound reasonably good, but by definition it is not "CD quality".

The content cartel has no trouble spooking Congress with this "CD-quality" line when they wring their hands about peer-to-peer filesh

In my experience, digital isn't really that
much higher quality than analog.

Then you either had a really high quality
TV before the HDTV-era, or only watch
NTSC-upsampled-to-HDTV-and-called-digital
(actually pretty common, the majority
of the broadcast "HDTV" channels do exactly
that).

Personally, I went from a typical 29" NTSC TV
to a mid-range 720p HDTV, and just watching
progressive scan DVDs (aka 480p), I notice a
drastic difference in quality. Not
just some subtle improvement, but a night-and-day